The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (9 page)

Summerfield took her hand—or pried it free, actually—and when he had it, he put it on his arm and covered it securely. He tugged her into moving, and led her to a seat on a silk-covered settee that seemed a little out of place in this very masculine study.

When he had seen her into a seat, he flipped the tails of his coat, sat directly opposite her in an armchair, and said, “Frankly, Madame Dupree, I must say straightaway—”

“—Here we are,” she muttered beneath her breath, expecting to hear his condemnation.

“—that I have no intention of dismissing you.”

Phoebe caught her breath—for a moment.

She leaned forward, peering at him. “I beg your pardon, but have you heard a word I’ve uttered, my lord? You should dismiss me at once!”

“Perhaps I should,” he said with a lopsided smile, “but I am not prepared to do so at the moment.”

“Oh good Lord,” she murmured in exasperation.

“Now, while I do not share your assessment that my sisters behave as apes, I will concede that they can be rather difficult. Given the circumstances, I believe you did what any decent person might have done.”

Phoebe looked at him suspiciously. “You do?”

“If you can delay dismissing yourself from my employ, I should like to tell you something about my sisters.”

She was helpless to refuse him; his eyes held her mesmerized, made her long to remain in this study with him until she’d lost her last shred of dignity. She absently ran her finger along the seam of the seat cushion. “Very well. If you must.”

“Thank you,” he said. “My mother died in the course of giving birth to Jane, and my sisters have never had the benefit of a mother’s love or guidance. I think that has been rather difficult for them.”

That certainly gave Phoebe pause. Her own mother had been taken from her when she was nineteen and she missed her counsel and guidance dreadfully.

“There was a governess, of course, but she was perhaps not suitable for teaching all the things they should know about society and decorum.” Summerfield looked at Phoebe pointedly. “It is true that my sisters have not been properly trained for their roles in society.”

That was a statement of the painfully obvious kind if ever Phoebe had heard one.

“Frankly, I was unaware of their predicament until only very recently. I am a bit older than my siblings, the nearest being seven years my junior, and I have been abroad these last few years. When I left, my father was in good health and in full control of my siblings and the estate.”

As he spoke, some emotion that looked like grief—raw, hardened grief—flitted across his features.

“In the time I was abroad, my father fell into exceptionally ill health. He suffered an apoplexy and lost control of his kingdom, so to speak. His illness rendered him unable to speak or to move. There were no provisions made for the handling of the estate, except those left to me by virtue of being his heir. By the time I arrived home, it was too late. The estate had fallen into disrepair and my siblings were living on precious few resources. Now, my father rarely leaves his room and I fear his time on this earth is not long.”

“Oh no,” Phoebe said, facing him fully now. “How awful for you. I…I understand how difficult it is, for I lost my mother only three years past.”

He nodded solemnly. “Thank you, for it is indeed very difficult. But my point, Madame Dupree, is that my siblings were left to rear themselves at a critical time in their young lives. Unfortunately, they did not do as well as one might have hoped—I fear they have made quite a reputation for themselves. If I am to believe my father’s secretary, they are fairly despised in Bedfordshire.”

“Oh,” Phoebe whispered.

Summerfield suddenly stood up and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am endeavoring to change all that, Madame Dupree. I am determined to see my sisters properly presented and married, and my brothers transformed into upstanding gentlemen. I know my sisters are difficult, but I hope that you will take their tragic circumstances into consideration when working with them. They desperately need the clothing only you can provide.”

“But…” She wanted to please him, but the prospect of working another moment with his sisters was too horrible to contemplate. “I fear I don’t know how to help them,” she said.

“I suggest you show them the deference that is their due, but do not stand down from them.”

Show those two hoydens deference? Phoebe shook her head. “Forgive me, but I am very ill-suited to this charge. That is, I came to work, and I cannot complete my work if they treat me, and each other, so rudely.”

“Agreed,” he said. “I have warned them both that they will be dealt with harshly if they behave so badly again. You need only tell me if they do.”

Still, Phoebe hesitated. She suspected that it hardly mattered how he threatened those two little beasts; they would do as they pleased.

But Summerfield saw her hesitation and leaned forward, bending over her, forcing her to look up at him. He captured her with a soft, imploring look. “You will help me, won’t you, Madame Dupree?” he asked, and smoothly, gracefully went down on his haunches before her. “There are some needs a woman has that I understand all too well,” he said low, his gaze languidly drifting from her mouth to her bosom. “Yet there are other needs for which I am quite helpless.” He looked up, into her eyes. “I need all the help you can give me. Please.”

Oh, how shamelessly he seduced her! Phoebe couldn’t help her smile. She was no naïve young debutante to be charmed into doing his bidding—yet this was one time a man’s charming manner was having the desired effect.

She sighed, irritated by her weakness, and leaned back, away from his compelling energy. “Very well, my lord. I shall try.”

He smiled fully, and it reverberated throughout her body. “Splendid. Now, as to the supper party for the Remingtons next week. I trust you will have two new gowns completed for Alice and Jane, will you not?”

“What? No, my lord! I can’t possibly—”

“I am certain you can,” he said, rising to his feet and offering his hand to help her up.

“It is impossible,” Phoebe insisted as she took his hand. But when she came to her feet, she was standing toe to toe with him, the top of her head even with his chin. He did not let go of her hand, forcing Phoebe to tilt her head back to see his face.

“Not impossible in the least, I am confident,” he said with a sultry smile. “But it is impossible for Alice and Jane to miss an opportunity to be presented at their very best.”

“I cannot, my lord,” Phoebe said firmly, trying to pull her hand free. “The maid who was helping me has been taken away. As it stands, I must work round the clock to complete two gowns suitable for an evening engagement.”

His eyes focused on her mouth and stirred something deep inside her. “Two gowns, Madame Dupree. I will accept nothing less, and Mrs. Ramsey has assured me you will do as I wish.”

She jerked her hand free of his. “I shall do what I can, but I cannot give my word.”

He chuckled low in his throat, looked at the Spencer coat she wore primly fastened, and touched the button just below her throat. “Two gowns, Madame Dupree.” His gaze was practically simmering.

Phoebe wished she were free of the Spencer. She wished she could just breathe. “Well, then. I will ask for your leave, my lord, so that I may clamber to fulfill your command at this very moment.”

He smiled. “I rather thought you’d see the necessity. You may have my leave. Good afternoon, madam.”

“It is practically evening,” she said, and brushed past him, passing so closely that in any other circumstance, it might have seemed forward.

Phoebe forgot her bonnet, forgot everything but his hazel eyes and the ridiculously imprudent sense of relief washing over her that she wasn’t leaving Wentworth Hall after all.

The seamstress intrigued him.

Will watched her go, his eyes drinking her in. Oh yes, she intrigued him, enticed him—she was an oasis in the middle of a social desert. He’d noticed the soft curves of her body the morning he had introduced her to the feral herd. With her hair hanging in one long, curly tail over her shoulder, her skin free of cosmetics, he’d thought then it was rare for a woman to possess such natural beauty. She was alluring. So alluring, in fact, that he’d felt a stirring of lust, a familiar tightening in his groin for a beautiful woman.

But he hadn’t noticed until perhaps this very afternoon how stunning Madame Dupree truly was. Perhaps it was the wild curl of her hair, the color of corn-silk, and the way it was scarcely contained in her prim little coif. Or perhaps it was the delicate blush of her cheeks when he’d touched the button of her coat. Or the largest and most unusual blue-green eyes he’d ever seen in his life.

And perhaps it was that she did not treat him with dripping deference the way most people did, but with a confidence and self-assurance he had not seen in another woman since his return to England.

Frankly, he thought it interesting such a woman was working as a seamstress. She was a graceful, elegant beauty men would long to touch. Will would have thought some wealthy gentleman would have snatched her up, either as a wife or a mistress, and surrounded her with beauty and comfort.

He walked to the window and looked out at the sloping green hills of the estate.

The fact that she was working as a seamstress under his roof was something of a blessing at a point in time when he desperately needed one.

The truth was that Will had not understood how difficult it would be to slip back into genteel living after his life abroad. Things moved exceedingly slow in the English countryside, and, moreover, he found the decorum required of his position in society stifling. He was not the same man he’d been when he’d left Wentworth Hall all those years ago. His experiences had opened a whole other universe to him, one brimming with new ideas and opportunities. That universe had narrowed considerably since his return.

Here, he felt as if he’d been shipwrecked on a provincial island, and even though he was surrounded by people, he felt mightily alone. He longed to move, to do something that made his blood race.

He longed to make love to a woman. He craved it.

Will fingered the small blue Egyptian scarab he wore around his neck, the charm that was supposed to help him rise above the needs of the flesh to a higher plane.

He’d worked hard to live up to the expectations of his rank since returning to Wentworth Hall. His duty to his father and his title was to marry and produce heirs, to keep his cock in his trousers and avoid scandal, and he took that responsibility seriously. Father had seen to it that Will had been allowed to experience life. Now he would fulfill his father’s wish and find a potential mate in the seemingly endless supply of unmarried young women in Bedfordshire, court her properly, marry her, and give his father the grandchild he’d dreamed of holding.

That duty was taking much longer than Will might have guessed. He’d not understood how difficult it would be to find a woman he could actually envision as his wife. He’d not been with a woman since he’d left Cairo, had no hope of finding a woman to bed who was not a harlot in this corner of England, and he was feeling the need with increasing urgency every day.

That need had grown very strong in the course of his interview with Madame Dupree. As she’d gone on about his daft sisters, he’d watched her pace, her hands flailing in her pique, and he’d imagined her with eyes half closed, her succulent lips parted, her lovely body nude beneath him as he thrust into her—

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts; it was Addison with his gloves and cloak. Will would be joining Henry Ellison to dine at the home of Bernard Fortenberry, who had three unmarried daughters.

He tucked the scarab beneath his shirt. “How do I look, Addison?” he asked, presenting himself to his manservant’s inspection. Addison maintained that the mark of a true gentleman was his fastidious dress—another skill Will had forgotten how to apply properly in his years of living in buckskins and lawn shirts.

Addison frowned slightly and reached up to his collar, straightening his neckcloth. “There we are, milord. Splendid, as always.”

Will smiled and fit a hand into a glove. “By the bye, what can you tell me of Madame Dupree?”

Addison gave him a quick look before turning his attention to the cloak. “Widowed, milord. Her husband was French. She is English.”

He’d guessed as much. “Family?”

“She’s mentioned a sister and a cousin who live on the moors north of Alnwick. No one else.”

“The moors?” He found that curious. The North Country was sparsely populated and rather harsh in climate—Madame Dupree seemed too refined for it. “How long widowed?” he asked as he allowed Addison to hold up his cloak.

“I wouldn’t rightly know, sir, but she is out of her widow’s weeds. That would suggest two years or more. Shall I make the usual inquiries?”

Will’s gaze flicked over Addison. “Indeed you should,” he said. He fastened the clasp of his cloak at his throat, but he felt a slight flush in his chest. A young woman out of her widow’s weeds might be as eager for a man’s touch as a man would be to give it. “And sooner rather than later.”

“Yes, milord,” Addison said.

Honestly, Will hadn’t felt this cheerful in several months. He smiled at Addison. “Don’t wait up for me. I am certain Mr. Fortenberry will keep me as long as is possible with his talk of the accomplishments of his daughters, and I rather suspect that afterward Henry will know of a gaming table somewhere.”

“Of course,” Addison said. He picked up Madame Dupree’s forgotten bonnet. “Leave it,” Will said, stopping him. “I shall return it to her.”

The tips of Addison’s ears pinkened. “I shall put it here for safekeeping,” he said, and placed it carefully on a shelf near the door, then bowed low as Will swept out, destined for another tedious evening of chatting up young women who hadn’t seen as much of Bedfordshire as he’d seen of the world.

S ince Summerfield had decreed Phoebe would create and finish two evening gowns in time for the supper party, she worked from the moment she arose until she fell exhausted into her bed. But in three days’ time she managed to finish the design and cut two gowns, and in spite of the frequent interruptions of Alice and Jane, she and Frieda had begun the hard work of sewing the pieces together.