The Problem with Seduction (20 page)

“I wish you wouldn’t have told him,” he finally said.

Con sounded weary, not angry, but a churning in her belly sent her rushing to explain. “He already knew about the canal. He was more surprised that
I
knew. I seized upon that doubt and attempted to double it by…” Here was her opportunity to explain her true quandary and trust Con would want to help her. “…by telling him that we are about to set out on holiday to see it for ourselves.”

“We?”
He glanced down at the top of Oliver’s downy head. “All of us? I can’t possibly afford a trip to Devon. Even if I could”—he shot her a warning look, as if to quell any offer to finance the trip—“I don’t think it’s at all the thing for a man to take his mistress on that sort of venture. Mixing business and pleasure is bound to be seen as inappropriate.”

“
I
don’t think so,” she said carefully.

“Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Hm.
She hadn’t. A man’s business was a matter for his wife to handle, not his mistress. Nonetheless, she couldn’t give up.

But how did she convince him?

She’d already settled on telling the truth. What was a little more truth now? “I spoke thoughtlessly to Finn. I reached a bit. But surely you can see the imperativeness of following through. I fear what Finn will think of my untruth if we don’t go.”

Con’s lips turned down. He adjusted Oliver’s gown and touched his round cheek. Then Con looked up at her with those devastating eyes and said, “We could stay here and attempt to make our relationship just as convincing.”

His voice held a gravelly hint of promise, as though he were willing to follow through…

She was close.
She quelled the urge to push too much, when he’d given her the perfect opening to do so. “We could, I suppose. I don’t think staying here would be
quite
the same.” She walked closer to him, then turned and stood by his side. Presenting herself as unified with him, as opposed to a quarrelsome wench. “I read a bit of news in the papers that might be of interest to you. The Grand Canal Company has made headway. Exciting, is it not?”

He seemed to mentally pause, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “What kind of headway?”

Perfect. He was distracted. “Something about puddle clay.”

He formed an ironic moue with his lips. “Yes, of course. That was going to be my first guess.” He returned to cooing at Oliver.

She shrugged. “I’ll fetch the copy when we go downstairs. I saved it. I thought you might like to speak to your solicitor about the decisions that have been made by the board, and perhaps go to Devon to see the progress for yourself.”

He looked up in surprise. “You know I haven’t got a solicitor.”

She kept her face expressionless. “All the more reason to investigate their actions yourself, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I can think of nothing I would know less about than the building of a canal,” Con replied drolly.

She tried for an empathizing smile. “Don’t you care if they lose the last of your money?”

His furrow deepened. She was on dangerous ground, if his expression were any indication. “I don’t know what I could propose that would be helpful to the board—or
anyone
involved, for that matter.”

“You could learn.” She drawled this as wickedly as if she’d offered him lessons in seduction.

He looked aghast at her. “Why?”

And here their perspectives clashed. He was a creature of the moment, content to float along on others’ whimsy, and she made her own fortune. “To
know.
You don’t know the first thing now, but you could learn. Then the next time you make a decision, you may do so wisely, or at least, in an informed manner.”

He scowled. “You make me sound like an idiot.”

“What else are friends for?” She gave him her winningest smile.

He cracked a grin in return. Elation lifted her. She’d pushed him far enough that he heard her, but not so far that he was angry.

“Suppose I agree to
learn
about canal-building. How do you propose I do it? I can’t exactly walk around asking my friends. It would ruin my reputation.”

She laughed. “My solicitor can be made available in a trice. As for Devon, an investor like you should be welcome to observe the venture at a moment’s notice. If you are greeted any other way, then there is a serious issue that most certainly warrants concern.”

His lips pressed together as though he remained unconvinced, but his laughing eyes ruined the effect. “Should I be wary of your intelligence?”

“Most certainly, my lord.”

“I’m not without an ace of my own,” he warned her. His gaze fell to regard the back of Oliver’s downy, dark head. “Before we leave for Devon—because I don’t fool myself thinking you’re going to allow me the use of your solicitor and not demand to be brought along—I need to borrow this little one.” Before she could object, he said, “My mother is asking to see him. Trust me, it’s difficult enough to suffer her disappointment for the way I’ve gone about procreating.” He sighed and looked ashamed of himself. “Given the ‘no time a’tall’ it’s taken me to become fond of him, I foresee more than one such excursion in his future.”

Elizabeth didn’t need time to think about his request.
Absolutely not.
He was
not
going to take Oliver out of her sight. What if Nicholas harassed him? There were other dangers, too. Runaway carriages. Ruffians and pickpockets. Oliver crying inconsolably. “I need to be there.”

Con regarded her with just a touch of pity. “I can’t take you to see my mother.”

That hit her squarely in the chest.
She wasn’t welcome at Merritt House.
Naturally, she wouldn’t be. But it bruised her to hear him say it. “Just to your door, then,” she said. “Let me go with you across the park to your house, then wait outside. I need to be there if he needs me.” She didn’t want to risk letting Oliver out of her sight when he was in the open for all to see and grab. Nicholas seemed to haunt the parks.

Con kissed the back of Oliver’s head. A blade stabbed between her ribs at the unconscious gesture of affection. He cared about Oliver. Even if he had no reason to care about
her
.

She shamed herself with her pitiful jealously. She’d always been a petty, spoiled girl. Could she really be resentful of her son simply because two people loved him, and she had no one?

Even she couldn’t be so horrid. She was being foolish again, and putting feelings into her heart that might not actually exist. It was too soon for her to have anything more than a passing interest in Lord Constantine. He was handsome and kind, but that was all. His affection for her son should have no effect upon her own poor heart, so what did it matter if he didn’t care about her?

Though she couldn’t shake one little word…

Yet.

Con arrived at Elizabeth’s front door the following day at two of the clock, rapped once and waited to be let in. Why, he almost felt like a proper suitor. It wasn’t every day he went for a stroll with a pretty woman on his arm. He was almost looking forward to it, actually. After all, he couldn’t really have expected to deny her the right to join him when she’d looked at him like he might very well misplace little Oliver somewhere between her townhouse and his mother’s sitting room. Even if it did disappoint him to know she had so little faith in him, he allowed that he was unlikely to manage the baby without her.

He rapped again on the door. This business of being made to wait for entrance was an odd way of keeping one’s mistress; at least, it seemed so to him. He supposed if he were truly paying her an annuity and keeping her in style on his own penny, he wouldn’t have to haunt her steps like an errand boy.

He liked her competent manner. Even if it made him all the more aware of his own lacking. He expected a woman in her profession to laze about during the day, eating ripened berries and taking the occasional walk to improve her figure. Every time he came to Elizabeth’s house, on the other hand, it felt as though he’d arrived at the absolute worst time. Her staff always seemed to be engaged in resolving a problem, and today was no different.

When he was finally let in he had to show himself to the drawing room as the footman who’d opened the door ran off to attend to some matter of more importance than the arrival of the madam’s protector.

Maids scurried past the drawing room door as he waited for Elizabeth to join him. After a quarter hour Rand entered, causing Con to look up from the book he’d opened across his lap.

“I thought you might like to know what all of the fuss is about,” the butler said in a statelier tone than Con would have thought possible. “The young master has learned to roll over. The housemaids are in a frenzy collecting all the long tablecloths and other dangling bits that could present a danger, for I am told that very soon now he will be able to sit up and reach for them.”

A smile tugged Con’s lips. “And Elizabeth?”

“Madam is so charmed, I daresay she hasn’t left the nursery since the news was brought to her at breakfast.”

Con nodded slowly. Then he closed his book and set it on the couch, preparing to come to his feet. “In that case, I’ll go up.”

“You’ll frighten the upstairs maids half to death if you arrive unannounced.”

Con smiled. “Then you’ll have to announce me.”

Rand grunted, but Con thought he saw the man smile just before he turned and presented Con with a view of his broad back.

Con felt embarrassingly slender in comparison to the massive servant. Rand’s expansive shoulders weren’t like the shoulders of any butler Con had ever seen. He nonetheless managed to maintain his aplomb as they navigated the narrow hallways and stairs to reach the nursery.

Nothing about Elizabeth’s household, Con was coming to realize, was what he’d consider dull and normal.

“Lord Constantine to see you, madam.” Rand bowed with an elegant flourish.

“Oh, no, I—” she exclaimed, but it was too late. Rand stepped aside to allow Constantine entrance.

She froze. Instantly, Con knew why she’d objected to his presence. Just as suddenly, he knew why she was considered one of the most beautiful women in London.

She stood in the center of the room with one arm stretched toward the floor and one toward the wall, as if Mrs. Dalton and she had been measuring a distance. She wore not a hint of cosmetics. He wouldn’t have ever noticed that she normally wore the stuff, except that the freshness of her face unmarred by powder and kohl nearly bowled him over.

Her pink lips were slightly parted, as though his sudden arrival had thrown her off-kilter. Dark brown curls escaped an ivory turban wrapped haphazardly around her head. In the back of his mind he slowly registered that everything, even time, seemed to have stopped the moment he’d walked in the door.

A white-gowned little body flipped over at his feet and just like that, everything became about Oliver again.

“He just started that?” A hint of pride took root in Con as Oliver pushed himself up onto his forearms and lifted his head to watch Con with large, inquisitive eyes. The area just under Oliver’s bottom lip glistened with drool.

Con drew out a kerchief and knelt to swipe the baby spittle away. “There now, that’s much better.” He set his elbow on his knee and looked up. Elizabeth’s longing expression tightened around his gut like a fist. Why was she looking at him like that?

“He’s been trying,” she said slowly as Con rose, “but he could only flail against the carpet. That
was
quite adorable, though I did feel his frustration.” Her uncomfortably intimate expression was replaced by wry amusement. “Now I feel sorry for Mrs. Dalton and me. Next he’ll learn to sit up, and crawl soon after that.” She sighed contentedly.

Oliver made a wobbly reach for Con’s shiny Hessians. He leaned forward too far and caught himself with one hand before he fell onto his face. His mouth opened and closed against the carpet like a fish as he blinked up at Con. “Gah. Gah!”

“Good morning to you, too, little man. But you don’t look ready to meet my mother, so I suggest you apply your energy to a different pursuit.”

Elizabeth shook herself a bit, as if she’d been in a trance. “Oh! I’d entirely forgotten. Heavens, I’m late. Does this really need to happen today?”

Con staved off a flutter of annoyance. “Yes. She’s been looking forward to it and besides, this was a commitment. I took you at your word.” He felt bad enough about pulling the wool over his mother’s eyes without disappointing her today, too.

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “If I were a man, I would slap my glove across your cheek for your tone.”

Ah, he
had
been a bit sharp. Con grinned. “If you were a man, you’d be ready to leave.”

“Huh!” She shook out her skirt. “Isn’t this frock good enough for stepping out?”

“To the contrary, I think you look lovely. But do
you
want to meet my mother in that gown?”

She looked momentarily nonplussed. “I thought I wasn’t going to meet your mother.”

“Oh,” fell out of his mouth before he could stop himself. It hung there between them: the honest, unvarnished truth.
He’d almost forgotten.
How had their arrangement become so natural to him that he’d misplaced the fact that she was a courtesan?