The Seducer (13 page)

“Thank God. A hare startled me and my aim went wild. No one walks these grounds, so when I heard your cry my heart stopped.”

Her senses returned. “I am quite safe. I do not even think it came close. I cried out because I was startled, that is all.”

He exhaled with relief. “Please allow me to escort you back to the house. Proper introductions will have to wait, but my name is Andrew Tyndale, and I will never forgive myself for my carelessness.”

He appeared solid and honest, and a gentleman. With the worry gone from his face, his expression was contrite and concerned. Diane judged him to be in his late forties.

Allowing him to escort her seemed a sensible thing to do. “Thank you, if you would. I am a little shaken, I will confess.”

As they walked in silence, she sneaked a few glances his way. He was an attractive man, with a strong jaw and deep-set blue eyes. His countenance bore an open quality, as if he did not dissemble much. She guessed that he had been quite dashing when young. The Roman style of his blond hair and the fashionable cut of his coat suggested that he still thought himself so.

She had met many men of his age since leaving the school. Some ignored the passing years and pretended they were still young, which made them more foolish than clever. Others so thoroughly gave in to the march of time that they might have been sixty already. Andrew Tyndale appeared to have struck a balance. He wore his maturity frankly, but his fitness and fashion announced he was not passé.

He smiled at her. It was a warm smile. It gave his face a countenance that inspired trust. “As I said, proper introductions will have to wait, but since I almost killed you, may I know your name?”

“Diane Albret.” She pronounced the “t,” as she had ever since arriving in England. She kept hoping that someone would recognize the name if pronounced that way. To claim her true heritage, she had also been trying to purge her speech of French words and her accent, even if both were considered quite fashionable here.

“You are French?” he asked, indicating, as George had, that the accent still marked her.

“I am English, but I grew up in France.”

“You were far from home, then, during the war.”

Yes, very far from home. She did not know why, but she sensed that he would welcome her confidences on that. He would be far more interested in what that had meant to her than Daniel had been.

“Are you a relative of the chevalier?”

“No. I am here with Lady Glasbury.”

“Ah, now I know why you look familiar. I think I saw you with her at Lady Starbridge’s ball last week. Is the countess a friend of the chevalier’s?”

“I do not think so. We are waiting for her brother to finish his practice.”

“You must mean Vergil Duclairc. One of the Hampstead Dueling Society. That is what they call themselves. Not fencing society, but dueling. They practice for the challenge that will never come, and fantasize that they are corsairs.”

“You are not a member, I gather.”

“I am too old to find fantasies appealing.”

“But you make use of the chevalier’s academy too?”

“His skills are unsurpassed, and he will use the military sabre, as I prefer. I like that he will spar without padded garments. Unlike the young men in there now, however, I keep my shirt on, and carry a fresh one to don when the practice is done.”

He laughed as he made his little joke. She almost did, too, until she remembered that doing so would indicate she had seen them without their shirts.

“The day is fair and the meadow very lovely,” he said, giving her a fatherly smile. “Let us walk across it and up to the house by the path in the opposite woods. There is a charming brook where some crocuses are in bloom.”

“No one else will be shooting, will they?”

“No, and I know how to stay clear of their range if they should start.”

She felt very safe with him, even if he had almost shot her. She wanted to walk across the meadow, so she agreed.

As her hem brushed against dried grass, she decided that she rather liked Andrew Tyndale’s company. She might have one day strolled like this with her father if he were not dead. Andrew Tyndale did not frighten her at all, being so old, nor make her unsettled. He treated her as he might a niece or daughter.

He did not create little eternities in which she forgot how to breathe.

“My apologies for my sister, St. John. Living independently has started her doing some very peculiar things.”

Daniel smiled at Vergil’s exasperation. Doing very peculiar things was something of a Duclairc tradition, and Vergil, with his respect for the appearance of propriety, was the odd one in his family.

“As a married woman, of course, it was not too shocking. Your cousin, however . . .” Vergil tied his cravat in the dressing chamber’s mirror. “I will remind Pen of her responsibilities there.”

“I would not make more of it than it was. I’m sure if your sister had known, she would have never intruded, let alone allowed my cousin to.”

Vergil nodded, relieved to receive absolution for his sister. “Damned decent of you.”

Daniel was not feeling at all decent about the whole little episode. Lady Glasbury’s behavior could be excused. His own could not.

He had known they were there, long before Vergil called out. He had noticed them as he caught Louis’s sword on his own. He had seen Diane watching him. He had been far too conscious of the expression in her eyes.

He had darkly enjoyed every damn second of what had felt like an hour, preening like an animal showing off for its mate.

She was making him ridiculous.

They walked out to the yard where the countess’s coach waited. Vergil walked over to it with an expression that said the countess was in for a little talk, in any case.

It turned out to be a short one. He came back to Daniel. “Your cousin is not here. She went for a walk, to permit my sister some privacy with Dante while the tale of his bad behavior could be told.”

“I will go and look for her.”

“You said that you had an appointment to attend before you joined us in Essex. Allow me, since we will be delayed until she is found anyway.”

The appointment was vitally important, but it could definitely wait. Daniel did not want Diane walking these woods.

As he turned toward the house, a little commotion ensued as two of the academy’s other students emerged from the house. They piled into a coach and the equipage pulled away.

Its absence revealed a horse tied to a post.

“I did not realize that Tyndale was still here,” Daniel said.

“He went to shoot just as we arrived. That was his gun we heard as we practiced.”

No sooner had Vergil spoken than his eyes lit with concern. Daniel’s heart sank with worry too. It was rare for anyone to walk in the park, and those practicing with pistols did not worry about such things overmuch.

“Surely, if she had been hurt—” Vergil began.

“You and Dante search the meadow and right woods,” Daniel said, striding toward the back of the house. “I will go to the target area.”

She had not been hurt. Daniel knew that when he heard her laughter.

He followed the sound until he could see her sitting on a log beside the brook. A little pile of crocuses had been heaped into her lap. A man offered her one more.

No pistol ball had found her.

Andrew Tyndale had.

Diane smiled as she accepted the flower. There was no cautious wariness in her eyes. No sense of danger. Of course not. Daniel could not see Tyndale’s expression, but he could imagine its open honesty.

No one but Daniel had witnessed the ferocity in those eyes when Tyndale sparred with Louis.

Nor had anyone else seen the other sparks as Tyndale watched Diane from across a crowded chamber at a ball. Daniel had, only because he had been carefully watching for them.

Tyndale sat down beside Diane and pointed to another flower that he held. She puckered her brow as she peered at it and received some lesson in horticulture.

She had to lean closer in order to see the flower well. Daniel did not miss Tyndale’s sly awareness of the subtle move.

Would the bastard try it now, here? Had age made the man that rash and bold?

The flower slipped from Tyndale’s hand and floated away in the brook. Laughing at his clumsiness, he reached for another from the pile in Diane’s lap.

Daniel watched that hand, and the arm brushing Diane’s body, and Tyndale’s eyes, and he knew for sure that, given enough time on that log, things would get much less innocent.

Instincts that he did not know he owned urged him to move. Primitive emotions of protection and possession shouted in his head. They surged so suddenly and violently that they almost overwhelmed him.

Other instincts held them in check. Those of the cat who sits in utter stillness and awaits the movement of its prey. Those of a man who plans a lifetime to achieve a goal.

That goal waited for him on the log. Five minutes, maybe ten, and it would be finished. Almost. The means of completion would be within reach, however.

He had expected it to take weeks. Months. Instead, fate had done it quickly.

Finished explaining the flower, Tyndale turned and poked its stem into Diane’s hair near her ear.

A bit of the wariness that Daniel knew well flickered over her expression. For an instant she scrutinized the face of the man beside her. She relaxed and smiled, reassured.

Daniel pictured that wariness returning. He saw her horror when the assault came. He knew how far he would have to let things go to have an excuse to kill Tyndale for it. The shout to protect her grew and grew as his head saw it all unfold.

A storm broke in him. The urge to step out of the trees appalled the man he had fought to become. Images flew in his mind of all the reasons he should wait for this bastard to damn himself. Memories assaulted him that chilled his spine whenever they surfaced.

Head in turmoil, blood pulsing, he stood torn between the forces raging in him.

Diane bent down to pluck yet another crocus. Tyndale’s gaze, hardly fatherly, wandered down her body.

The lasciviousness of that gaze caused streaks of lightning in the storm. A decision that Daniel had never expected crystallized at once.

She had suffered enough in this. He would find another way.

chapter
13

D
aniel stepped out of the trees.

Diane saw him as she bent to pluck a purple crocus. The sound of his step made her head snap up. She straightened quickly.

Her girlhood name for him popped into her head. The Devil Man. She had not thought of him that way in weeks, but she did now.

His expression appeared amiable. He strolled forward casually. All the same, she sensed a threat in him, a coiled danger. His eyes definitely held the lights that said nothing distracted him this day.

“Here you are. We feared you had gotten lost. The countess is waiting.” Daniel’s gaze came to rest not on her, but on Andrew Tyndale. “You and I have never met. I am Daniel St. John. Miss Albret is my cousin.”

Mister Tyndale rose. “I must apologize for not bringing her back at once. Her pleasure in the flowers delayed us.”

“Actually, I did get lost and Mister Tyndale was good enough to show me the proper paths.” The lie blurted out. For some reason, it seemed a good idea to give one.

“It is kind of you to try and overlook my inexcusable carelessness, Miss Albret, but the truth must be told or your cousin will find our association improper. I was shooting and a ball went wild, St. John. When I heard a woman cry out, I ran to investigate. Your cousin was not harmed, I am relieved to say, but she was badly shaken. Pausing a moment by this brook so she could collect herself seemed an appropriate thing to do.”

“I thank you for taking care of her. There was no way for her to know that these woods could be dangerous. If I had realized she would have an opportunity to explore them, I would have mentioned it. I should have in any case, as a precaution, upon learning she would be stopping here with the countess.” He stepped toward Diane and cleared the way. “You have my gratitude.”

It was a dismissal, and just short of being rude. Mister Tyndale graciously took the hint and strode up the path through the trees.

“You are to have nothing to do with that man in the future. Ever.”

Daniel’s back was to her as he issued the command.

“I think he is very nice, and sadly distressed by the accident with the pistol.”

It came out more of a challenge than she had intended.

He turned. When she saw his expression, a lump formed in her throat.

“There was no accident. He saw you walking alone and shot in your direction, to have an excuse to meet you. There is no way that someone using the target area could send a ball over the meadow.”

His accusation raised her irritation. He was becoming as tiresome as Penelope found Vergil, only Daniel St. John had no right to these lessons and scolds with her. He was not her brother, or even a relative. She resented the way he impugned poor Mister Tyndale, who had been so worried and contrite for his error.

“Perhaps he used a different target area. A hare startled him and—”

“A
bear
would not startle that man. He is reputed to be one of the best shots in England. Thank God for that, since he dared such a ruse to get to you.”

“You are ranting like a madman. Mister Tyndale was in every way a gentleman. Not to mention that he is old enough to be my father.”

“Christ, you are ignorant. Do you think a man’s age makes any difference in such things?”

“Yes, I do. His behavior was impeccable with me. I enjoyed his company. I think that he would be a good friend to me.”

“He wants more than friendship, trust me on this.”

She laughed. “That is what Madame Leblanc said about you. Almost the same words.”

“And she was right, damn it.”

He suddenly was closer. Right in front of her. She had to tilt her head to see his face.

New sparks entered his eyes. The deep ones she had seen that first evening in Paris when he broke the urn. The steely ones he had displayed when he confronted Vergil at Margot’s salon.

He was jealous.

She had no experience with jealousy, but she did not doubt she was right. A stupid part of her was flattered. A bigger part was furious.

“Do you warn them all off? Do you spend your time at those parties and dinners following me around, letting them all know that I am penniless and orphaned and not worth their attention?”

“I let them know that if they do not treat you properly, they will answer to me.”

“But you count on none of them wanting to pursue me properly because I have no fortune, don’t you?”

He did not respond, but she had learned enough of how the world worked to know she was right.

The absurdity of her situation hit her with force. Her head pounded with indignation.

She gestured to her garments and laughed bitterly. “But you have spoiled me, St. John. Ruined me. Look at the doll you have bought. Do you expect me to sit on the shelf forever, being pretty? When this is over, what choice is there for me? Should I be content to be a governess now? Or a lady’s companion? After all these grand diversions? I have been calling on
duchesses.
Since there is no proper way for me to live this life in the future, I think I had better consider the alternative.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Margot has returned to London with Mister Johnson by now. I have been remiss in not calling on her.”

She turned on her heel. She managed three smug, angry steps before he grabbed her arm.

“The hell you will.” He swung her back to him. Against him.

His embrace enclosed her. Shocked her. She managed one squirm of resistance before the warmth of his body and the demand in his eyes began defeating her indignation.

She fought the enticing intimacy even though her heart ached for it. Maybe that was what she had meant by threatening to become a Margot. Perhaps if she did, the loneliness and the void would be obscured for a while.

As Daniel was obscuring it now.

“You are not to have anything to do with Tyndale.” He spoke gently this time. Seriously. It sounded more a warning than a command, but she still had enough sense left, enough hold on real time and place, to resent it.

“He does not think of me in that way.
He
is a gentleman.”

“All men think of you in that way.”

“I doubt that is true. I think—”

His kiss silenced her. Its firm demand proved that at least one man thought of her that way.

The kisses came slow and hard and merciless. They were full of the danger she had sensed when he emerged from the trees, and of the jealousy she had perceived in his accusations. They were the kisses of a man provoked, ignoring rules and proprieties, laying claims he did not even want.

She knew all of that, but her heart and her soul could not resist. The warmth weakened her as it always did. That he cared enough and noticed enough to be jealous was something, at least. Even lust required attention. Even base hunger meant she was wanted in some manner. The way he aroused her body only weakened her more. Slow caresses reminded her of the physical joy he could give.

She succumbed to the daze. She forgot where they were, and that she should stop him. The hated void shrank, died, liberating a happiness she did not deserve. She clung to it hungrily, but even in her rapture she knew it was false and would not last.

His hand moved under her cloak. Kisses burned her neck, biting at her pulse. A caress on her breast made her gasp. Her soul knew that he would not stop, that he was more removed from the world than she.

His fingers stroked her nipple, sending pleasure shivering through her.

“You are to have nothing to do with him,” he said again. “With any of them.”

A tiny rebellion sparked in her mind, but he obliterated it with another kiss. His embrace commanded more than lured. She lost her grip on her feeble resistance as his power swept her away. She kissed him back, not knowing why, just agreeing without deciding to, because the reactions of her body and heart demanded it.

His embrace wandered, caressing her boldly. She moved into his touch even while the path of his hands startled her. Over her stomach and bottom, down to her thighs, he pressed and claimed all of her. His touch moved more shockingly, teasing through her gown along the cleft of her bottom, venturing toward the pulse that maddened her, making the pleasure sink and throb.

A voice called his name, seeking him. She heard, but he did not. It penetrated her stupor and reawoke her alertness to their surroundings. Frightened, she twisted her body to escape.

He lifted his head and froze as the sound of Vergil’s voice approached on the path.

She broke free and jumped away. With the separation, confusion inundated her.

“You said you would not. In Paris, you promised—”

“I promised nothing.”

Suddenly Vergil stood at the side of the little clearing. He looked at her and then at Daniel.

She could tell that Vergil suspected what he had interrupted. Daniel undoubtedly could tell too. He appeared unfazed, however, as if what had occurred was worth the expression of disapproval flickering beneath his young friend’s lowered lids.

Vergil tried to hide the awkwardness. “Tyndale said you found her. Good. Pen would like to be off soon, however. She wants to arrive at the party before the earl.”

“Of course. It was rude of me to delay the countess.” Diane had no idea how she found the voice to speak. She cobbled together enough poise to walk away from Daniel’s scorching gaze and accept Vergil’s escort to the waiting coach.

“He is being very cautious,” Adrian said as he led the way down the street. “If I did not know what he was up to, I most likely wouldn’t have a clue from what has happened.”

Daniel walked beside him along the quiet lanes near the river. They were not in London, but across the bridge in Southwark, in a poor quarter of ramshackle buildings and warehouses.

He tried to pay attention to Adrian’s story but it was hard. His mind was full of Diane. His head and body were still back at the brook, succumbing to the raging desire that his decision about Tyndale had unleashed. He had wanted to kill Vergil for interfering, but was also grateful for it. If left alone much longer, he would have laid Diane down and—

“He needed me to find this building, of course. No one who owns such insignificant property can speak his language and he can’t speak theirs. He also had me take drawings to get the cylinders made. He was able to procure the chemicals on his own, I suspect, since he required nothing of me there.”

“Fortunate that he stumbled upon you,” Daniel said, forcing his attention to the matter at hand.

Adrian chuckled. “I walked right in front of the man three times before he did. He is always looking at the ground, ruminating on the great questions of the universe, one assumes. I never expected him to blackmail me into working for him, however. I merely thought it would be easier to keep a watch if he expected to see me about.” He stopped at a building, little more than a large shed tucked low and deep between its neighbors. “Here we are.”

“You’d think the crown jewels were inside.” Three big shiny locks festooned the door.

“I considered having the locksmith make me extra keys, but did not want to take the chance Dupré would find out. No problem, however. Keep a watch now.”

Daniel blocked him from view. Glancing back, he saw Adrian remove a thin metal stylus from his coat and begin picking the top lock. “Where did you learn that?”

“From a colonel in the guard with our embassy in Turkey. It is a useful skill for a diplomat’s secretary to have.”

The first two locks clicked open in rapid succession. Daniel threw back his arm. “Wait. I see someone.”

Adrian turned and folded his arms. Daniel peered into the shadows across the way where he had noticed a movement. “I had better check. Wouldn’t do if Dupré had someone watching this place.”

“Unless he found a French spy, I don’t know how he would arrange it. But go ahead.”

Daniel walked out of the rubble yard in front of the building and aimed for the shadow.

As soon as his destination became clear, a man darted out and hurried down the street. In the few moments before the man turned away, Daniel caught a glimpse of a beard and dark hair beneath the hat.

He returned to Adrian. “Just some poor sod, curious and idle, as one would expect in this area.”

Adrian worked the final lock. He pushed the door open.

The interior of the building was as poor as the outside. Years ago someone had plastered the walls, but time had turned them cracked and gray. A little light came in through a high small window, despite the new shutters and lock that covered it.

Against one wall was a table covered with a row of metal cylinders, each connected by wires to a liquid-filled pan.

Daniel strode over and peered into the pans. Each one held a chunk of metal of good size. “Is it operational?”

“I think so. I haven’t stuck my hand in one to find out.”

“There must be a hundred pounds of iron here.”

“Since I arranged the purchase, I can say it is exactly that.”

Daniel took in the remarkable contraption. “This must have cost a good deal of money.”

“My purchases came to over a thousand pounds. The chemicals had to have been hundreds more.” Adrian pointed to the iron bars. “You will notice that they are of even size and shape. I added that requirement. I had no idea what you intended, but should you plan anything, I thought the standardization would be convenient.”