The Seducer (12 page)

“Well, we can certainly see what we have. I can have our clerks check, and send the information to you.”

“Would it be possible to do it now? I would be very grateful. I have been searching for many months.”

Daniel emitted a sigh. “Mister Thompson is very busy—”

“Not too busy to aid a damsel in distress.” Mister Thompson’s face fell into a mask of sympathy. He gave orders to his clerk, and huge bound tomes began arriving.

Mister Thompson leaned over her shoulder to explain how the entries were made. “Do you know the names of the ships or their masters?”

She looked at Daniel, who shook his head.

“No, only the owner’s name.”

“Ah, that makes it more difficult. We must examine this column here, but there will be no order to it. Here, you do this one, and I’ll do the other and my clerk will manage the third.”

She smiled up with gratitude at his very close face. He flushed to the edge of his receding hairline.

“Mister St. John, if you have other business in the city, I am sure that Mister Thompson and his clerk will assist me,” Diane said.

“Have no fear, St. John, your cousin will be safe with us.”

“I will stay here,” came the firm reply.

There were only three tomes, so he just sat in a chair near the window while Diane and her two smitten assistants paged through them.

Two hours later Diane had irrefutable evidence that her father had insured no ships through Lloyds during the six years before he disappeared.

She had walked into the Royal Exchange feeling bold and confident and certain of making progress. Now, as she closed the heavy binding of her volume, a wretched discouragement gripped her.

Mister Thompson noticed. “I am so sorry. We could search further back if you want.”

“No, thank you.”

The two men looked at her with expressions that said they’d each cut off a leg to spare her this unhappiness. That only made her feel guilty for her little flirtations.

“Come, Diane.” Daniel’s voice was right behind her.

She did not want to look at him. He would probably be annoyed that she had caused so much trouble to no purpose.

Forcing her disappointment down, telling herself that there were other insurance partnerships and this was not the end of her hopes, she accepted his escort down to the street. As he untied the lead of his horse, she saw his face.

Not annoyed. Something else tightened his expression and burned in his eyes.

They walked west in silence. That relieved her. She was too disheartened to meet any scolds with the self-righteous challenge she had thrown at him a couple of hours ago.

She could practically hear the scold anyway. It came to her in the indifferent tone of the old school questions.
Are you contented now? Will this be enough for a while? Is it sufficient to have wasted the afternoons of three men on your great quest?

As they neared Temple Bar, the chaos and rhythms of the streets abruptly changed.

People walked a little faster. The poor and common ones streamed toward the river, while the carriages and better dressed people hurried in the other direction. Daniel stopped and peered down the narrow lane, cocking his head.

A rumble could be heard vaguely on the breeze.

“Another demonstration,” Daniel said. “Near Parliament. The session should have started for today.” He took her arm and aimed in the direction from which they had just come. “We will have to go another way. Unfortunately, it means passing through an unsavory part of the town.”

They found a quiet lane, empty of people. The shops had closed their doors.

Daniel led the horse over to a mounting stone. “There is no telling what we will meet. It will be better if we ride. Get up on this block and I will help you onto the horse, behind me.”

She stepped up. “I have never ridden a horse before.”

“Then today will be a first for many things, won’t it?” He mounted the horse, then leaned toward her. “The first time riding a horse, and the first time flirting until men gave you what you want.” His expression tightened again as he said the last part.

His arm circled her waist, bringing him distressingly close. “Also the first time for displaying your legs to all of London. This will only work if you hitch up your skirt, since you must ride astride. Do it now and I’ll lift you up.”

She obeyed. With a swing she was behind him, her skirt scrunched up to her knees.

“Cover yourself as best you can with your cloak. Then hold on to me so you don’t fall off.”

She resisted the final command, and grabbed the back of the saddle instead.

She almost bounced off, and the animal was barely walking. She gingerly slid her arms around Daniel’s body.

It wasn’t an embrace. Not really. The connection, the warmth, instantly overwhelmed her, however. Just as Madame Leblanc’s parting hug at the school had left her breathless, just as Daniel’s scandalous handling in the carriage had weakened her, this hold, even lacking intimacy, caused an immediate reaction.

The void engulfed her and then cried with relief, almost moaned, as the softest, most human contentment flooded it.

See, not completely alone,
her heart whispered.
There are other ways. Other homes, and other loves, beside those of family.

It had been wise to ride back and not walk. They passed through rude streets. The people loitering in them had been stirred up by the demonstration they had not even joined. Daniel trotted along at a fast clip, ignoring the shouts aimed their way.

Suddenly he stopped the horse. Peering around his body, she saw that a crowd had formed on the street ahead of them. Daniel turned their mount, but bodies were pouring into the crossroad they had just passed too.

Muttering a curse, he turned once more and trotted forward. “There must have been some violence near Parliament. Word must have spread on it. Hold tightly now.”

She held on very tightly. Faces around her wore ugly expressions that deformed the humanity of the group into the snarling masks of a mob. She remembered the attack outside the opera in Paris, and worried that some of these poor people had knives.

Using the bulk of the horse, Daniel pushed through. A few men tried to stand their ground and only jumped aside at the last minute. Curses and vulgarities flew directly at them.

“Why are they angry at us? You are not in the government.”

“They are angry at anyone who can eat without counting the pennies left.”

The faces sneering at her did not look so inhuman suddenly. “If they are hungry, I suppose that excuses such behavior.”

He turned his head to glare back at her. “There is
no
excuse.”

Just then a man grabbed the horse’s bridle. Another grasped Diane’s exposed ankle. Horrified, she tried to shake him off, only to have him laugh.

With a snarl, Daniel kicked her attacker so viciously that the man flew and fell back into the gutter.

Diane caught a glimpse of Daniel’s face while he reacted to the threat. For an instant he appeared so hard and cruel, so primitive and ruthless, that she almost released her hold of him and veered back. Then she blinked, and the look was gone so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined it.

Daniel moved the horse to a faster gait. The crowd split. There were no more challenges.

Soon the crowd thinned and disappeared, along with the poverty of the buildings. The familiar low rumble still flowed on the breeze, but all other evidence of unrest ceased.

“You must get down now,” Daniel said, stopping the horse. “Others must not see you like this.”

They walked the rest of the way to his house. He didn’t say anything, but she sensed that he wanted to. Not pleasant things, of that she was certain. His silence had a dark edge to it.

“Come to the study, please.”

She felt as she had at school, when summoned to the headmistress’s office. She hated that reaction in herself. She resented being at such a disadvantage, and not even knowing why, or what it was that he expected of her.

At least he did not sit behind the study’s desk and examine her as if she were some errant schoolgirl. Instead he went to the window and, as he so often did in her presence, looked out, instead of at her.

She resented that too.

“I know that you are unhappy about today. I am sorry for that.” He sounded sincere enough. So why did she sense that he wasn’t entirely sorry at all?

“Perhaps you should not dwell too much on finding lost relatives, Diane. The disappointment—you are young and have a life to build. The past can be a chain, and you have been spared that.”

“You do not understand.”

“I think that I do, better than you know.”

“If you did, you would never call the past a chain, as if it imprisons a person.”

“It can.”

“Then I want some of those chains. I want to be tied to a family, good or bad. I want to be able to say my grandfather lived in this town and my uncle had that trade.” She heard resentment and pleading in her voice, but could not stop either. “I want to know that someone cared about me when I was born and was sad to leave me and thought about me sometimes. I want to know that somewhere there is some cousin or aunt who wonders what became of me.”

The chamber rang with her declaration. It echoed for a long time before the silence swallowed it.

“Is that all? I want to leave now.”

He turned. “No, that is not all. You must not go out alone again.”

“In Paris we agreed that I could continue here as I did there.”

“I did not know that you walked alone in Paris. Take an escort in the future.”

“Are we finished
now
?”

“No. I realize that these last weeks you have learned the power that a beautiful woman has. However, the way that you flirted with Mister Thompson and his clerk today was too bold.”

“It was not bold at all. It was very subtle. I have seen duchesses do far worse.”

“You are not a forty-year-old duchess.”

“No, I am a twenty-year-old penniless orphan. If a smile will get the Mister Thompsons of the world to open their books, it is a small price to pay and the only currency I have.”

“I would have gotten the books opened for you.”

“I preferred to do it myself. Tell me, m’sieur, is our arrangement producing the results you had hoped?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I attracting the attention you expected? Are you meeting the men you hoped to meet? Is business getting done over cards and at clubs? Is your investment in me bringing returns?”

“What a thing to ask. You astonish me sometimes.”

“I prefer you astonished to scolding. If all is happening as you wanted, I do not think your lessons are appropriate. Count your winnings, and leave me to amass my own.”

She left, and with each step the little fury she had known since he confronted her on the street grew. She approached the staircase almost trembling with frustration and an inexplicable sense of insult.

Two Oriental urns stood on the ends of the banisters. Unlike the ones in her chamber in Paris, these were rose and green and covered with flowers. She looked at them, propped on display for all to see, announcing the urbane taste of the man who owned them.

Who owned her, too, in a way.

She lifted one of the urns. The thinness of the porcelain proclaimed the craftsmanship as clearly as the decoration did.

Cradling it in her hands, she reveled in its feel.

Expensive. Perfect. An object of exquisite beauty.

She released it from her grasp. It crashed to pieces on the marble floor.

The sound echoed down the corridor. Doors opened and servants rushed out and gaped. Daniel emerged from the library, curious.

She stood amidst the shards, barely containing a naughty euphoria.

The servants stared from her to Daniel.

He walked over with the oddest expression on his face. He pointed to the broken urn.

“That was Ming.”

“You give your vases pet names?”

“Ming Dynasty. At least three hundred years old. As a pair they were priceless.”

“You said to break one. Every day if I wanted.”

“Those were the ones in your chamber.”

“It matters?”

He headed back to the library with an expression of forbearance. “That you broke anything at all is what matters. It does not bode well for me, does it?”

chapter
12

T
hey have not concluded, my lady. I expect it will be at least an hour.” The footman spoke through the coach’s window before his face disappeared.

Penelope looked apologetically at Diane. “I hope that you don’t mind waiting for them.”

“Of course not.” That was the most disarming thing about the countess. Even though she had befriended a shipper’s obscure cousin, she acted as though Diane should not be grateful and even had some right to “mind.”

“Well, I do. Not this delay. If my brother asked me to wait all afternoon, I could not complain. However, it vexes me that I am such a coward. I resent that the earl can do this to me, but I am helpless against the fear.”

“That you are attending this party at all shows you are not a coward.”

They were on their way to a house party in Essex, at the invitation of Lady Pennell. Penelope had arranged to stop at this old house in Hampstead, to meet her brother Vergil so they could all travel together.

Under normal circumstances, the countess would not have required such an escort, but this might be a very awkward party. Her husband, the Earl of Glasbury, would be attending. Her family was coming out in force to support her. Her eldest brother, the Viscount Laclere, intended to ride up to stand at his sister’s side too.

“We could watch,” Penelope said. “It is a fencing academy owned by the Chevalier Louis Corbet. Some say it is the best in England, despite the fame of Angelo’s on Bond Street. At Angelo’s fencing is a sport. Here it is said the chevalier teaches it as a skill for war or dueling. We might sneak a peek.”

“Is it permitted? Do women watch at this Angelo’s?”

“Of course not. However, I have discovered that once a woman has walked out on her husband, there is little else that she can do that will really shock anyone.”

Diane had realized some time ago that Penelope considered her new freedom worth a little public censure. Not that she really exploited that freedom. Unlike some women who might brazenly take lovers, Penelope’s sins were of a different nature. She mingled with people a countess normally would not, and embraced as friends others who had fallen far lower than herself.

According to Jeanette, the countess was tainting herself beyond redemption. The people who mattered would more easily forgive a love affair with a married man than democratic friendships. It was just a matter of time before some of the drawing rooms still open to the countess, started closing.

Pen led the way to the house’s entrance and nudged the door open. They followed the sounds of clashing steel to a large chamber off the hall. Peeking around its doorjamb like children spying at a ball, they saw three pairs of men dueling with swords.

“It looks very dangerous,” Penelope whispered. “They are not even wearing padded shirts. One wrong move and there will be blood.”

Diane had not considered the danger implied by their garments. She had only noticed the lack of them. Not only did they not wear padded shirts, they wore no shirts at all. The room swam with the images of six naked, strong torsos.

She had never in her life even seen one before.

“I did not realize that your cousin would be here,” Penelope said. “The gray-haired man he duels with is the Chevalier Corbet.”

Diane had picked out Daniel at once. He faced them, but all his concentration remained on his opponent, as well it must.

“He and the chevalier are clearly the most skilled. My brother’s moves are less daring. More studied.”

Diane was not noticing the various levels of skill. She could not take her attention off Daniel. He appeared very handsome. Unlike the grimaces of exertion on the younger men’s faces, his remained calm, almost cold, as he met the chevalier’s attack.

He looked magnificent. Strong and confident and lean and muscular and . . . wonderful. The lightest sheen covered his skin, and taut muscles sculpted his arms and shoulders and chest. He was not the biggest man in the room, but there was no mistaking that every inch of him was finely honed and potentially dangerous.

Her gaze drifted over those muscles, fascinated by their chiseled hardness. The way his torso tapered to his hips compelled her attention. A flush swept her, and forbidden memories of his caresses in the carriage entered her head.

What would it feel like to lay her palm on that chest? It appeared so hard, and yet surely the skin would be warm and soft. . . .

“Hell, Pen, what are you doing in here?” Vergil Duclairc’s yell snapped Diane out of her shameful speculations.

They had been noticed.

The sparring ceased immediately. Vergil and three other men strode to the side of the room and grabbed shirts.

Daniel did not. He lowered his sword as he looked to the doorway. His gaze caught Diane’s before she could duck behind the jamb.

She felt her color rising. Something in the way he looked at her suggested he had known she was there. Much as she had seen his reaction in the modiste’s mirror, he had seen hers, despite his attention on the chevalier’s sword.

Unlike Vergil Duclairc, he had let her watch.

His expression reflected neither embarrassment nor shock. His eyes merely acknowledged what she was seeing, and the fact that she had not looked away. And still wasn’t.

“Jesus, Pen, what are you thinking?” Vergil suddenly loomed in front of them now, blocking the view of the chamber. His shirt hung loosely off his shoulders, no more than a quick cover to hide his nakedness.

Beside him stood a perfectly beautiful young man with brown hair and a winning smile. Properly clothed, he had been lounging on a bench at the side of the room.

“I had no idea that you fenced without clothes,” Pen said.

“Only when we practice defensive sparring. It is to accustom us to the vulnerability—see here,
you
are the one who needs to do the explaining, not me.”

“We were just curious about the practices. Thank goodness you were not completely naked, as in Elgin’s Greek metopes. And to think I always assumed that was artistic license on the sculptor’s part.”

Vergil sighed with exasperation. “You know very well that you should have left at once. Furthermore, to bring Miss Albret . . .”

Penelope glanced to Diane. “Oh, dear, I have been remiss. We will go now and wait in the coach. Do not hurry on our account. I insist. Finish as you planned.”

Taking Diane’s arm, she aimed for the building’s entrance. “Vergil can be a bit stuffy. It was always in him, but is getting worse as he grows older. I don’t know where he gets it, since our family is not known for such things. Rather the opposite. He means well, but it can be tiresome.”

“I agree, Pen. Having just listened to a scold that lasted our entire way here, I have to say that Vergil’s stuffiness has swelled considerably since I last saw him. Although sneaking a peek like that really was scandalous of you.”

The response came from behind them. Diane glanced back to see the beautiful young man following. The humor in his limpid eyes suggested he found scandalous behavior great fun.

Out in the yard, Pen gave him an embrace and a kiss. “Diane, this is my youngest brother, Dante. He is only eighteen but has already lived a lifetime of trouble. I was surprised to see you in there, Dante. It was kind of you to come down from university to stand by me.”

“I am glad to stand with you, but I confess that I had little choice on the coming down part.”

Pen’s face fell. Her sigh sounded as exasperated as Vergil’s had just been. “You mean that you were rusticated? Not
again,
Dante. No wonder Vergil scolded. What was it this time?”

“Just a small matter.” Dante shot Diane a glance, to remind his sister they had company.

“Since it appears that we have some time before we leave, I think that I will take a stroll in the park,” Diane said.

Pen had become absorbed in her youngest brother and did not object as Diane walked away. Her last sight of them as she turned the corner of the house was Dante speaking with a sheepish expression, and Pen moaning at what she heard.

Diane was well into the woods before she realized that she had never taken a walk in the country before.

The school had been on the outskirts of Rouen, but its surroundings were hardly rural. Outings had been into the city, not away from it. In Paris, and now in London, she enjoyed the parks but never ventured away from the cultivated areas. This Hampstead house might not be circled by farms, but the land was large enough and so overgrown that the setting appeared rustic.

She strolled down paths, surprised that the experience did not startle her more. People spoke of nature as a transforming place. Instead it felt quite familiar to her. Perhaps that was because it was silent and lonely, and her heart was very accustomed to both those things.

Not completely silent. The crack of gunfire pierced the quiet at regular intervals. Not too far away, someone was shooting at game.

That did not startle her either. She knew at once what the sound meant. She knew that it belonged in this place and that she should not go near it.

She turned onto a new path and saw a clearing up ahead. A cottage came into view as she neared the break in the trees.

She paused. The image of that cottage, framed by tree trunks and hovering branches, was so familiar that her breath caught. She had the odd sensation that she had experienced this moment before.

It was not the first time she’d had that eerie feeling. She knew that everyone did sometimes. This was more distinct than ever before, however. She believed that, if required to, she could describe the cottage completely without seeing the rest of it.

She tried to do that. When her mind failed her, when no obscured details emerged, she laughed at herself and walked on.

The cottage, thatched and old, with plastered walls and visible timbers, appeared well maintained. Someone lived there.

As if summoned by her curiosity, the door opened and an old man stepped out. His clothes were simple but clean, his beard long and white. He noticed her.

“Is the chevalier taking women students now?” He chuckled at the notion as he carried a pail to a well.

“I am only visiting. I am not learning to use a sword.”

“You speak like him. French, are you? Don’t get women here much.”

She moved closer. The sensation of a moment relived, grew. “Who are you?”

He looked at her in surprise, then laughed. “I’m George. I keep the grounds, best as I can with these bad legs. I’ve been here most of my life, since before the chevalier had the place. Hell, I was here when that wastrel had it, before Corbet. Lost it gambling, he did, which I could see coming. Just like I can see those young bloods who come for their dueling lessons probably losing most of what they have to women and cards.” He cranked until the pail emerged from the well. “One bold question deserves another. Who are
you
?”

A profound disappointment stabbed at her. “I am no one.” It was out before she realized it, a response born of the peculiar desolation suddenly breaking her heart.

She turned on her heel, to be away from this place that made her feel so odd and unknown.

“Do you know your way back?” George asked.

She halted. She had not paid much attention to the paths she had walked. That had been careless.

“Lucky you didn’t get lost. You take the first path that branches right. It will bring you to the side of the woods, and just follow it up to the house. There’s other, faster ways back, but that is the clearest. You stay along the trees this side of the meadow, though. That firing you hear is one of those bloods practicing with pistols on the other side.”

“I thought it was hunting.”

“Not much hunting done in these parts anymore. Too many houses being built. Used to be country here, but the city is closing in.”

She thanked him and followed the path as he had instructed. When it turned to flank the meadow, the sun burnt away the sensation of déjà vu.

She could not see the house, but she aimed toward it, trusting George’s directions. A few early wildflowers dotted the small meadow. By summer, they would blanket it.

She wondered if she would meet the chevalier. If she did, maybe he would invite her to visit again. She imagined herself running barefoot under the sun in this meadow. The fantasy was so vivid that she felt the grass and earth beneath her feet.

The shooting had stopped, but suddenly a crack split the silence. A faint buzz sounded near her ear at the same time. A
thud
to her left made her snap her head around and cry out.

She froze, stunned. It took several moments to comprehend the reason for her reaction.

A gun’s ball had whizzed past her.

The chill of fear breathed down her neck. The same shock she had experienced after the opera now immobilized her.

A man emerged on the other side of the meadow. He saw her and broke into a run. As he came toward her she saw only blond hair and a distraught face.

“Are you hurt? Were you hit?” The questions called out as he neared.

She wasn’t sure. She did not think so. She shook her head.